


Air + Water

by violetvaria



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Bromance, Codependency, Double Drabble, Extended Metaphors, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 03:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetvaria/pseuds/violetvaria
Summary: Jack needs Mac like he needs air.Mac needs Jack like he needs water.





	1. Chapter 1

He needs Mac likes he needs air.

He needs the constant exchange of poison for purity. He needs the feeling of fullness that a truly deep breath can provide, the pressure in his chest when trying to hold in a lungful of sweet air, the twinge when he hasn’t realized he has been holding his breath for just a little too long.

Air shouldn’t hurt. Jack knows this. Breathing should be easy.

And usually it is. Their light banter, the automatic way they watch each other’s backs, the wordless communication that traces between them at the speed of thought…it’s easy. It’s normal. It’s natural.

As natural as breathing.

So if sometimes Mac is injured and there is a stab of pain that steals Jack’s breath, that is to be expected. If at times he cannot sleep because he cannot draw air into his lungs, imagining those worst-case outcomes—that just comes with the territory.

It’s still natural. Still normal.

Jack can handle occasional suffocation if it means that Mac still breathes.

If Mac is breathing, so can Jack.

He knows this is true because of the way he cannot get enough oxygen when his partner is out of his sight for too long. He knows how it hurts his chest, constricts his lungs, steals his breath, because if Mac is gone, there might as well not be air in the world.

Mac is air.

Mac is life.


	2. Chapter 2

He needs Jack like he needs water.

It is disconcerting to admit, even to himself, how he feels more alive in Jack’s company. As though the affection Jack sprinkles on him, the warmth he pours out, the advice and instruction and encouragement and support that stream out of him in a fountain—they somehow cause Mac to open up, they nourish his soul, they make him _blossom_.

If he tries to build a dam, keep the deluge at bay, the reservoir of water just gets quiet and deep, and Mac can still hear Jack’s words in his mind, can still feel Jack waiting steadily, patiently. Constantly devoted, always loyal, forever faithful.

So dams burst without a sound, and Mac soaks up his partner’s presence once again.

Sometimes Jack is like a torrent, his closeness, his concern, his _caring_ just too much, all too sudden, and it is like trying to drink from a firehose. But Mac has been both—he has been parched in the desert and submerged in the flood, and he knows which he would choose between the two, every time.

At least with water, there is hope. There is the chance of revival, the possibility of not only existence, but of growth.

Jack is water.

Jack is hope.


End file.
